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Cottoncandy was a sugary confection made in the AmericanSouth during the Reconstruction period that followed the Civil War (also known by less educated people as the War Between the States - could you imagine Texas fighting Minnesota in a cage match?). After the war, most of the candy factories in the South were destroyed.

The development of Cotton Candy in the States occurred almost simultaneously with the development of said confection in England. The evidence for the variation in design philosophy is clear in the respective names... USA: Cotton Candy; England: Candy Floss.

Whilst in the states the intention was to use the surplus of cotton, that had been produced through intensive over farming of the cotton plant, to fill the void left through manufacturing shortages of sweet confectionery products, in England, with the perpetual dentistry problems, the intention was to create a confectionery product that cleaned the teeth whilst being eaten.

The confusion for the British people came with the addition of the word "Candy" which is totally meaningless on said Island. In order to indicate that the product was indeed a confectionery product, the designer- a Benjamin Disraeli, chose to colour it the obvious shades of pink and blue which at the time were the only possible colours for confectionery products (milk chocolate is in fact a very deep shade of blue and white chocolate an extremely pale shade of pink).